It is only in racing and in hunting stables that horses are put through this process. When the training-groom speaks of sweating, he means sweating with exertion. The horse is put through his physic, and prepared for sweating by several days or weeks of walking exercise, varied by an occasional gallop. If the sweating and exertion must go together, it is very necessary to prepare the horse for the process by some gentler exertion, for it is a very severe one. If the horse be very lusty, he goes daily to walking exercise. After a time he is put to a short gallop, varying in speed and distance according to his age. It should at the first two or three trials not exceed half the distance he is to go in his sweat; if he suffer that, without distress, it is gradually lengthened till he is able to go nearly, or quite as far as the sweating distance. If the trial gallop distress him, he returns for a few days to gentler exercise, and the pace and distance are increased more gradually.

Great eaters are muzzled for eight or ten hours before they go to the sweating-ground; some require to be muzzled twelve hours, some six, some not at all; the stomach should not be loaded In the morning, or when the weather is cold in the forenoon. the horse is clothed in his sweaters, the quantity varying according to the effect desired. A soft porous blanket lies next the skin; a breast-piece covers the bosom, while the head and neck are enveloped in a hood. Over the blanket, one or two, it may be three or four quarter-pieces are thrown; and perhaps another hood may be required, the undermost wanting the earlets. These are tied and buckled, with care that no part encumber the action, nor abrade the skin. The legs, the eyes, and windpipe, must be clear; the breast-piece must not be drawn so tight as to confine the legs or press upon the windpipe. The saddle goes over all. The horse is ridden to some convenient ground, hunters to the field, racers to the course. If the horse's legs be defective, he is mounted by a light weight; sometimes he is led by a man on another horse. In the first or second sweat it may be proper to forbear riding; but in general it is not a good practice to lead the horse. He is so little under control that he is very apt to be lamed.

Arrived at the sweating-ground, the horse is usually walked round it, just to let him know it, and to give him the use of his legs. The pace increases from a walk to a trot or canter, and from that to a gallop. The length and speed of the gallop must be regulated by the training-groom. Speaking generally, the horse should rarely go at full speed, and not above a few hundred yards at a time. When a certain distance is not aimed at, the gallop should often end so soon as perspiration is fully established, and in no case should the horse proceed at the same pace after he appears the least distressed. As he improves in condition, he goes faster and further before perspiration appears.

In racing-stables the sweats, almost from the beginning, are of a certain length. According to Darvill, "the length for a year-old, is two miles; for a two-year-old, two miles and a half; for a three-year-old, three miles, or three and a half; and for a four-year-old, four miles. In preparing for a four mile race the horse may have to sweat four and a half or five miles."*

Though the colt or horse may have to go a certain distance, yet the pace at which he goes must vary with his condition. At first, the lusty horse especially should go very slow; and when the body is loaded and the legs weak, I think the full length should not be tried at first, even though the pace be slow. For hunters the pace and the distance must be limited by the state of the legs, and the freedom of the breathing. Excess at the beginning may possibly shorten the time of preparation, but it is much more likely to injure thelungs or the legs.

* Darvill on the English Race-Horse . - Vol. II., p. 270.

When pulled up, the horse is walked to his stable. He may stand for a minute to recover his wind. If the sweating-ground be at a considerable distance, the horse is followed there by the groom and his assistants, who dry him in the field. The horse is placed in a sheltered spot, perhaps beside a hedge; his clothes are removed, and he is scraped as dry as possible; fresh clothing is put on, and the horse is ridden smartly home. Subsequently, the treatment is the same as after sweating in the stable. If the stable be near the sweating-ground, the horse had better go there at once. He is in less danger of catching cold.

I need hardly repeat that this process has a double effect, it improves the condition of those parts upon which muscular exertion depends, and it removes superfluous flesh. How far it is proper to aim at both objects by the same process, I leave to the consideration of those who have experience in the practical details of training. I should think it would be safer for the legs of a lusty horse to get rid of great part of the superfluous flesh with as little exertion as possible, to reduce him in the first place by purging and sweating, leaving no more superfluous flesh upon him than what exertion without clothing would remove. Sometimes the trainer unites both modes of sweating. After sending the horse his sweating distance, further perspiration is encouraged in the stable.

The repetition of these sweats must be regulated by the effect produced, and by the effect desired. While the robust glutton may require a sweat once a week, or thrice a fortnight, the delicate abstinent may not need more than one in five or six weeks, or perhaps none at all.

Bleeding, as an operation preparatory to work, is hardly ever necessary. It is customary, however, in some hunting and in coaching-studs, upon taking the horse from grass. I believe it is nowhere so common as it used to be. It takes the flesh off a horse very rapidly, but it produces great debility. Perhaps the parts which are absorbed after blood-letting, may not be the same parts that sweating and purging remove. It may be that the loss of pure blood may be replaced by the absorption of solids and fluids more necessary to vigor than those solids and fluids of which purging and sweating produce the removal.

Diuretics are those medicines which increase the flow of urine. They are not of much avail in training. They are useful, however, when there is reason to fear plethora, of when the legs swell, either from rest or from excess of food or excess of work. Nitre, resin, turpentine, soap, and oil of juniper, are all diuretics. For a horse of fifteen or sixteen hands high a diuretic ball may be composed of - nitre, four drachms; resin, three drachms; and oil of juniper, twenty drops; with soft soap sufficient to make a ball of the proper size. From four to eight drachms of nitre, given in a mash, may be sufficient to prevent the plethora which idleness on a working-day might produce, and it is useful when work has excited a little fever, or swelled the legs. No diuretic is to be given within forty-eight hours after, nor before profuse sweating.

Alteratives

In the stables this term is not applied to any particular drug or prescription. Almost every groom has a recipe of his own, and the effect, when any is produced, must vary according to the articles employed. Taken as a class, the alteratives used in training may be regarded as gentle evacuants, acting upon the secretions of the skin, the bowels, and the kidneys. Nitre, resin, sulphur, balsam of sulphur, Ethiop's mineral, cream of tartar, black antimony, tartar-emetic, calomel, cinnabar, with a host of gums, spices, and herbs, are used individually, or in various combinations. Many inert articles are employed. Very often so little is given, that neither ill nor good follows, and sometimes a dangerous and fatal dose is given through ignorance of its powers.

In former times it seemed to be a rule that the horse should swallow a certain quantity of medicine every year, whether well or ill, poor or fat; and among grooms who pretend to much knowledge, and have a great deal of ignorance, it is still a custom to force drugs upon him, not so much to cure as to prevent. If any evil be threatened, or in existence, it is very right to take measures to prevent or to cure it; but the people I speak of give drugs without seeing any sign that they are wanted. The horse may be as well as they desire him to be, and not exposed to any change of circumstances or treatment that can make him worse, and yet they give some stuffs which they call alteratives.

In training, good grooms do not employ means of this kind without some reason. The horse may not be altogether right, his bowels or his skin may be out of order, his legs liable to ©well after work, or frogs to get thrushy in the house. The horse may have a bad appetite, or his appetite may be too good. For these and suchlike matters some medicine which will gently stimulate the secretions of a particular organ may be very useful. An alterative powder in very common use is composed of antimony, nitre, and sulphur, mixed and given in the same doses, and with the precautions, which are mentioned in connexion with grooming, to produce a fine coat. When the skin is rigid, the hair dry - when there any pimples on itchiness upon it - when there is any tendency to swelled legs or thrushes - a few of these powders may be given with benefit, a stronger remedy, such as sweating and purging, being unnecessary or impracticable. When a bad day keeps a hearty eater off his exercise, one or two of them will prevent repletion.

Sometimes the antimony is given alone. Nimrod recommends an ounce every day, for eight days together. The horse should not hunt nor race till a week after the last dose.